Even a little dog can be a great alarm and a huge deterrent. I'm just biased towards big, scary looking pit mixes with a huge BORFBORF and the actual energy level of a pet rock (eats, poops, sleeps, big snores).
With your other troubles in mind, I was trying to think of a cheaper alternative to cameras and motion lights, or a full blown alarm system. In our area a rescue doggo runs about $100, but if they're full, sometimes they slash it down to $10-20.
Cameras still might not be a bad idea.
@surreality That's insane! I'm suddenly glad all my problems this month are tied to money and not stalkery nutjobs. If you need an ear to vent to, let me know. We've always had the same rotten luck with jerks on games. They're supposed to stay on games, though! You're upping the ante. (Seriously, though, stay safe. Look up your states 'Castle' laws. Get the gun.)
Do you have a big dog?
Heehee #YetAnotherMageThread.
I think, honestly, communication'll be pretty key. Being upfront with the 'hey, please don't cosmic phenomenal power the game right out of the box or I will find you some itty bitty living space'. It's probably wishful thinking.
Now I'm idly wondering if Shadworun's mage treatment would work for WoD mages. Total sensory dep and heavy doses of drugs to keep 'em compliant.
For sure, they could. I plan on keeping them pretty busy. And the low/slow xp gain should help somewhat keep them in line to an extent.
I mean, they -could- go out and wreak havoc, but there's also consequences for it, too.
Politics should be fierce. Upfront it's all happy and cozy and friendly, but behind the scenes there's 3 praxes jousting for dominance and to undermine each other. Mage and Changeling are still in a more building phase. Wolves will have their hands full with a nightmarish mess and likely being fought over as meatshields for the factions.
Each neighborhood has 3 traits in the room parent: Sphere, Group, and Risk. Basically which sphere has greatest claim, which pack/coterie/gang/or brave individual has local claim, and the Risk is how likely you are to get messed up. Misleading and shifty due to plot and all influences, mundane and otherwise.
For instance:
If there's a biker gang of mortals, you can bet the Vampires in the area are going to jockey to control them or run them out.
Same for, say, mages, looking to control a coterie.
This is where the coins come in. Buy, sell, trade you favors to gain strength.
Enough coin can assassinate a Prince or turn a Changeling against a motley.
There are nasty consequences for failing to perform a task bought with coin. Everyone has a price, though...
I totally agree about the access to plots. That's part of the +plots - it gives off-time folks a way to actively tie in with the bigger plot arcs going on, including the secret plot twist stuff, without needed a staffer to be on to run it.
Information spread, bbposts, access to NPC's (even if just by +job and play by post if need be).
Breaking up some of the tiny bubble cliques is part of why I'm pushing for tons of cross sphere activity and adding in the system to have a currency for buying boons that all splats can get access to.
There's only so much staff can do, too, though. If staff doesn't have the support of players to make the magic happen, then it's dead in the water. Likewise, players without staff support can also really struggle. The trick is finding the perfect balance. Get the info to the people willing to spread it and push to help loop in newbies. Have the staff go to them and find out what they might be interested in to.draw them in.
It's not /hard/, on paper, it's just a lot of communication that seems to be missing between players and staff that gets tripped on.
I'm not sure where you get that most conditions give beats. For instance, starting at page 306 in WtF, 6 of 41 conditions listed give beats (no, I didn't look in the tilts, either).I can do a quick skim-count of the others, but I think 'Some' is a good word for the number of conditions that give beats, if we're being pedantic.
eta: looked in mage, 16 of 34 give beats.
changeling has 22 of 61
vampire: 15 of 44
CoD: 6 of 23
HL: seems to only have 5 new conditions, and they all award beats, for persistent injuries like limb loss, deafness, and blindness.
I -had- to go and look after saying that to make sure I wasn't talking out my ass.
Plot is the easy part. There's been a ton of idea tossing and I'm sitting on so many plot ideas. I'm super excited to run them and see them run.
Here's the helpfile from the game on xp gains. All pc's start with 10xp.
XP Gains
+- A passive beat (.2 xp) will be awarded nightly.
+- Players can earn +2 beats (.4 xp) per plot scene participated in. This can include large
social scenes, or important, smaller, social scenes such as Clan meetings as well as more
plot and combat oriented scenes.
+- +1 beat (.2xp) is granted to ST's for running scenes as a show of appreciation for the
hard work involved.
+- An additional +1 beat (.2xp) for running or being in a plot from the +plots roster.
+- Fulfillment of Aspirations
+- Some conditions award beats.
+- +Randomscene (Max of 7 additional beats per week.)
+- Taking lethal damage in one of the last 3 boxes.
+- Dramatic Failures.
+- Each sphere also has specific events that gives beats (Such as frenzy.)
Randomscene is some custom code. Remember how RfK had those custom matched lists of people to rp with?
+rs is codified. It selects a list of Approved pc's and gives you a handful of people to match to, up to +7 beats/week. I want to say it pulls a list of 10 names, allowing for timezones and such.
The first 2 weeks that someone is on the game, they are constantly matchable. I believe that Sombronax pulled both from RfK's idea and the code from Arx for inspiration.
Redacted: Reading program launch error. Apologies. I misread, Jibber.
Glad to have you back!
The big thing I'm poking at now is looking at Lodges, Bloodlines, Legacies,and Entitlements.
There's no particular theme, per se, but the game itself will be -very- cross sphere. I expect to see packs, coteries, cabals, and the like with lots of cross-sphere tie-ins. The overall feel I'm aiming for is 'tense cooperation'. Up front, everyone plays ball, but in the shadows, the politics will be savage with high stakes for boat rockers that get caught.
An entire chunk of the grid (Central) will be neutral ground for all spheres. With plans for 3 praxes, and a Hellmouth.
We've started on plans for 'permanent temprooms' with themes/descs for the Shadow and Hedge. These will not really mirror the base grid, but give people a better idea of what things will look like.
Theno's working on a few code tweaks, additions and upgrades/fixes for us.
Starting to build up some steam!
I have no looked at the Contagion stuff. Got clobbered real good by rl this last week. Someone did hand me a copy of the Chicago book to dig through. I've been slowly working on reading it. And we've gathered a small crew of enthusiastic folks with big ideas.
The discord is in my signature, if anyone wants to pop on and have a chat or idea bounce.
@Thenomain They probably just use +notes to track them. Or such has been my experience running and playing on games with your code.
I wonder if, because of the overlap, it might be better to just make a small, modular system that pulls from the +sheet stats, but is it's own code. Then you can track wolf/vamp/ling/whatever touchstones under +touchstone? That just sounds really complicated to try and code in, and a pain to track via +notes.
Would they work with their own sheet section in a simple list like merits, or are they more complicated than that? SO is reading the book and hogging it, so I can't go and look.
http://cityofshadowsmux.com/index.php/Map:City_Grid
That has the 9 big districts and the smaller districts within them, using a map I found. Not shooting for crazy super accurate, just hoping for /close enough/ in terms of what's available to be believable for a mu*. Does that help some with what's already @dug? Even the red links are dug, just not desc'd.
Lots of chicago people here! I've never been.
What are some 'must have' locations?
The grid is set up like nesting dolls:
9 districts
-+ neighborhoods within district
--+ place where the buildings will live.
I still want to play with multiple praxes, and the underground is going to be fun to play with. That pesky fire and everything being built on top of it?
Be careful with what scents you use - some can have detrimental effects on critters.
After a good sized slump and bit of burn out, I'm looking to get the ball rolling on this again. Unless I can find staff, it'll be slated to open as m/m+/vampire. I have code in for werewolf and mage, with the intention of adding changeling as the code comes to completion.
Things needed to finish this thing off:
Overall, I'd say she's probably about 70% done, since most of the workload is in the code, and that's more or less done, barring a few tweaks to customize the game and getting all the equipment updated to current books.
The game is set in Chicago.
@surreality Hah! I call them things like 'Rainbow and Black Byzantine Bracelet 8"' Fuck those fancy names XD
